The Body/Mind Electric

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As I begin this essay, I am acutely aware of the click-clack of my fingers on the percussion of small buttons. I am drumming out my ideas to you, dear reader (see “Addressing the Audience…” above). You cannot hear the tap-ta-tap-tap but maybe you can imagine the words sounding out in your head, your tongue articulating each phrase. With a brief moment of reflection, I note that to transcribe most effectively I must do this--sound out the words in my head--before I type them. The speed of this “mentalizing*” subsequently dictates the dexterity in my hands. If the wording is poorly conceptualized, my inner dialogue slows and my typing stalls. For instance, “phenomenology” proves difficult for me to say and thus to type and although I am a decent typist (40 wpm), I also cannot type as quickly as I speak. So, as mentally evoking the words delays my typing, the act of typing equivocally stalls my inner dialogue and effects how I think. By slowing my thinking, typing allows more time for reflection and grammatical construction. Upon re-reading, I find my writing voice even “sounds” more composed than when I speak: it is both more formal in the figurative sense—academic, contrived, and less organic than speech; and more formal in the literal sense—a crystallization of meaning with pre-conceived, digitally perfect letter-forms. In other (self-consciously constructed) words, my writing voice resonates with less idiosyncratic impulsivity than my speaking voice. In effort to invoke spontaneity into the work, I can organicize** my writing by eschewing formal literary conventions and fabricating my own words. I can also experiment with CAPITALization, abbrev., and pun<+u@+!0N. This organicization is a common phenomenon of Internet “chatting” where formal literary traditions fall short of conveying the audible fluency and expanse of the spoken word, especially slang.

Examples***:
OMG! = Oh my god!
WTF!!! = What the fuck!!!
lol = Laugh out loud.
brb = Be right back.
; ) = Wink, wink.
: ( = This makes me sad.

* “Mentalizing” is not a word according to Microsoft Word’s spell check and Dictionary.com. Searched on Google (4/6/09), “Mentalize” is currently the alias of a Youtube subscriber who uploads amateur Spanish videos of music concerts, family and friends to his personal channel. Google also links “Mentalize” to the article “What is Mentalizing and Why Do It?” published by the Menninger Clinic website, an on-line source of psychiatric information. Menninger psychologist Jon G. Allen, PhD. defines “mentalizing” as “when you’re aware of what’s going on in your mind or someone else’s.” This definition comes closest to what I mean. When I am “mentalizing,” I am aware of my own imaginary gestures (For more information see “The Internet as Word Generator” in my blog).

** By “organicize,” I mean—to make less artificial and more nuanced like conversational dialogue or the unschooled expressions of children who still speak their mother tongue. When I googled the word, it eventually led me to an essay on “Neo-Colonial Globalization” (http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/boundary/v026/26.3cheah.html)

***To translate more Internet slang, go to http://www.noslang.com.